At least two or three times a month, I see back in time. Sometimes I’m even able to overhear entire conversations. I know it sounds hard to believe, but it’s true. I’ve been able to see New York City in 1911 as people and cars dart about… and Paris in the 1890s when horse-drawn carriages […]
The same national security elites who pushed the United States into war in Iraq and Afghanistan are now trying to do the same with Russia and the Ukraine. In the process, they are urging the sort of insane escalations – no fly zones, providing fighter jets to Ukraine — that, in August 1914, turned a minor act of terrorism in […]
It’s a cold, sunny day in mid-January, and I’m sitting on a frosty barstool outside, sipping the hot mulled wine the Czechs call Svarák. I can see the colorful Astronomical Clock about thirty feet away, built by Master Mikuláš Kadan in the early 1400s, with the Church of Our Lady of Týn looming above Old Town […]
At the bespoke fly fishing shop in the northern California town of Redding, the clerks all wear masks against Covid-19, pulled down under their chins so you can hear their advice on where the fish are biting. I am here in one of the premier fresh water locales in the world, near the Oregon border, […]
Last year I took a year-long course in German through an online program at a community college. I travel to Germany on business quite a lot, and after five years of visits wanted a thorough understanding of German grammar and basic vocabulary. It was an astonishingly good course, difficult and thorough. My teacher prepared weekly videos that went over […]
One hundred and fifty-five years ago, the bloodiest conflict in America’s history was finally coming to an end. It was mid-April 1865. The Civil War was almost over, after more than 600,000 deaths. Just five days earlier, on April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General […]
This April marks the 155th anniversary of the killing of President Abraham Lincoln by the actor John Wilkes Booth. Around 10:20 p.m. on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Booth snuck up behind Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC. The actor fired a.44 caliber derringer into the back of Lincoln’s head, then jumped onto […]
On a recent business trip to Berlin, I stopped by the Berlin Wall Memorial on the corner of Bernauerstrasse and Ackerstrasse.[1] It’s the longest stretch of the wall (1.4 kilometers) in its actual historical setting, a chilling reminder of what life was like in the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR). With an Orwellian flourish, the […]
My children were exasperated. About once a minute, I hit the pause button on the TV remote, just long enough so I could catch the French word scrolling across the bottom of the screen in the subtitles. I was watching Zone Blanche, a new French TV thriller on “Netflix.” My family watches a lot of […]
A war of words has broken out in recent weeks among groups of conservatives in the United States over the issue of legal, as opposed to illegal, immigration. It’s put to bed the popular 2016 dictum to “not punch right,” or, as Ronald Reagan used to phrase it, never to speak ill of a fellow […]
judge’s ruling on November 6 may pave the way for some American states to force doctors and nurses to commit various forms of medical killing against their will. In a sweeping 147-page ruling, US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York struck down a 2017 Trump Administration rule that would […]
At the Obama Foundation Summit meeting on October 29, 2019, in Chicago, former president Barack Obama again strongly criticized the “woke” identity culture that puts a premium on moral outrage over race without actually doing anything concrete. “I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, […]
The legal dispute between a formerly married Texas couple over whether their 7-year-old son should be given hormone-blocking treatments and “transition” to being a girl may turn out to be the straw that finally breaks the transgender movement’s back – at least in terms of public opinion. The case, widely reported in the United States, […]
I know plenty of Democrats. Both of my parents were Democrats. Some of my siblings. Almost all of my cousins. Heeding President John F. Kennedy’s call to ask not what your country can do for you, but to ask what you can do for your country, they believe government should protect working families against the […]
In the midst of the annual battles over how a pluralistic society should properly recognize an important Christian holiday celebrated by 70 percent of the population, there is one question rarely asked at this time of year: Just who was Jesus of Nazareth, anyway? Some claim that Jesus didn’t exist at all, and that Christianity […]
I’m one of those disaffected conservative voters who are delighted by Donald Trump’s politically incorrect jabs at the media — and by his plain speech. Like many old white males who own their own businesses, pay their taxes and just want to be left alone in peace, I’m mad as hell and don’t want to […]
When listening to politicians, you always have to remember Rahm “The Godfather” Emanuel’s adage: never let a serious crisis go to waste. What Emanuel meant by that, of course, is that politicians should take advantage of a crisis situation to advance their political agendas. That is precisely what happened with the mass murder in San […]